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The Johns Hopkins Hospital

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Pathology

Biography

Dr. Charles Eberhart is a professor of pathology and oncology and an associate professor of ophthalmology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. His research focuses on molecular genetics of medulloblastoma, glioblastoma, uveal melanoma and other tumors of the brain and eye. Dr. Eberhart serves as the director of Ophthalmic Pathology within the Wilmer Eye Institute.

Dr. Eberhart’s lab focus is on the Notch and Hedgehog pathways, which play a key role in both normal brain and eye development and in neoplasia. He is currently analyzing the effects of Notch and Hedgehog pathway blockade on cancer stem cells in brain and eye tumors.

He received his undergraduate degree in biochemistry from the University of Texas at Austin and earned his M.D./Ph.D. from UT Southwestern Medical School. He completed both a residency in anatomic pathology and a fellowship in neuropathology at The Johns Hopkins Hospital. Dr. Eberhart joined the Johns Hopkins faculty in 2001.

Dr. Eberhart has been recognized with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Postdoctoral Research Fellowship for Physicians, and career awards from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund and the National Institutes of Health. He has published more than 80 research articles and is on the editorial board of the Journal of Neuro-Oncology, Brain Pathology and the Journal of Neuropathology and Experimental Neurology.

Certifications

Research Summary

Dr. Eberhart and his lab members study the molecular genetics of medulloblastoma, glioblastoma, uveal melanoma and other tumors of the brain and eye. They focus on the Notch and Hedgehog pathways, which play a key role in both normal brain and eye development and in neoplasia. They are currently analyzing the effects of Notch and Hedgehog pathway blockade on cancer stem cells in brain and eye tumors and are also investigating the basis of the sometimes antagonistic effects of various Notch receptors in medulloblastoma and how this relates to their roles in neural stem-cell proliferation and differentiation. They are also examining the role of c-Myc in the stem cell phenotype of cancer.

Lab:

The Eberhart, Rodriguez and Raabe laboratories are focused on understanding how tumors of the brain and eye form and grow. Their studies frequently use normal development to guide this investigation of the neoplastic process, as rapid growth and cellular migration are common to both processes. They have implicated Hedgehog, Notch and other developmentally significant signaling cascades in the initiation and ongoing growth of malignant brain tumors such as medulloblastoma and glioblastoma. They are also engaged in preclinical testing of pharmacological agents that target these pathways in brain and eye tumors. Another related area of interest in the lab is the relationship between stem cells and cancer. The possibility that transformed stem cells represent the origins of brain and eye tumors, as well as the hypothesis that “cancer stem cells” are required for long-term tumor self renewal and growth, are both active areas of investigation. Finally, they have recently shown that alterations activating BRAF are common in pediatric low grade gliomas, and are examining the pathobiology of this complex group of tumors.